Today, Pine Harbour is a world class marina surrounded by a busy community – a place to work, live, shop, relax and attend events. But Pine Harbour's development continues.
Thirty years ago where Pine Harbour stands today was a rural area, quite isolated from the small town of Beachlands. In the early 1980s there was talk of creating a marina for the local area, and in 1984 investigations began to formally look into the financial, marketing, environmental and engineering aspects of such an undertaking.
Pine Harbour received consent in 1985. The District Plan introduced a specific Boat Harbour zone which was considered appropriate at that time. The District Plan and various resource consents have allowed for the establishment of hard stand areas for boat storage and also the construction of a number of buildings which house a range of marine related industries.
Development of the marina, which began in 1986 entailed over 440,000 cubic metres of material being removed to create the marina basin and a 1.5km long navigation channel was dug to provide safe all tide access to the marina. After two years of hard work, Pine Harbour Marina opened on 1st May 1988.
Since then, a lot has happened at Pine Harbour. The first industrial building went up in the early 1990s and three additional buildings followed as more space was required. Retail buildings were completed and fully tenanted by 2003, including the Chandlery, Shipbrokers, Liquor Store and Cafe & Bar. Long gone were the days when Pine Harbour lay in an isolated rural area. Residential developments clustered around the marina and Formosa Golf Course was established off Jack Lachlan Drive.
At the same time a number of marine commercial activities have established and in more recent times a number of non-marine related commercial activities have also established at Pine Harbour including cafes and offices. Currently Pine Harbour has developed to 570 berths catering for vessels from 9 to 20 metres in length in the Marina with a further 200 vessels in the Boat Park. It has commercial office space with a total of 31 commercial units. There is a high level of interest in commercial space at Pine Harbour due to the actual and projected growth in the area. Pine Harbour has 18 industrial units housing a variety of tenants.
In 2003, in response to the growth in the Beachlands/Maraetai community, Pine Harbour established a regular weekday commuter ferry service to Downtown Auckland. Continued steady growth in the area means Pine Harbour now has a fleet of three modern, efficient ferries that make thirteen trips per weekday to Auckland plus weekend trips to Waiheke and Rakino Islands. Currently the ferries carry approximately 76,000 passengers trips to Auckland per annum. This equates to approximately 2,900,000 vehicle kilometres saved from Auckland's roading network each year. The compounding annual growth rate in patronage between 2003 and 2009 was 20%. The demand for additional ferry services has been extremely high as it is a faster, safer, cheaper, more relaxing and more environmentally friendly mode of transport when compared with private vehicle transportation. The time taken to travel by ferry to Downtown Auckland is 35 minutes, less than half the time taken by car in peak times, allowing commuters to have certainty about travel times.
Determining a long term plan
Pine Harbour was growing, but there was still so much more potential and without a ‘big picture’ view there was the risk of it growing haphazardly and becoming disjointed. So, in 2006 Pine Harbour initiated a Master Planning exercise to determine a possible future pattern of land based development at Pine Harbour.
Within the Auckland region there has also been a shift in the way people perceive or consider what are appropriate land use activities adjacent to marinas or ports. Land holdings adjoining marinas are now viewed by a sector of the community as a desirable place to work, live and play.
This is being reflected at Pine Harbour where the Marina has fielded numerous enquires in respect to possible commercial or residential space availability while at the same time there has been a significant rise in the number of people visiting and using Pine Harbour for non marina related activties (i.e. dining, walking)
Although the current District Plan provisions essentially allows for the full development of the Boat Harbour area zoned land for marine related industry it does not provide for a greater range of non marine or non-marina related activities. Pine Harbour is currently under-utilised in terms of its use for marine industry and marine related activities.
Pine Harbour has also recognised that the future development needs to be undertaken in a more comprehensive and integrated matter in order to achieve greater land use efficiency, avoiding reverse sensitivity effects arising between different land uses and ensuring that future development is integrated with the Beachlands settlement (including any future expansion of Beachlands). Furthermore it is also considered appropriate to incorporate the adjoining PHHL land zoned Rural Special 1 into any future planning of Pine Harbour as this landholding essentially links Pine Harbour with the Beachlands settlement.
After much discussion, a proposal was set; “To create a thriving community clustered around a world class marina”. This concept would continue the process from Pine Harbour being only a marina, to becoming a community where people could work, live and play.
The steady growth of Pine Harbour continues with today over 550 privately owned berths, more than 200 boats stored in the Boat Park and onsite facilities for boat cleaning and maintenance. Brand new retail buildings have been built and tenanted, landscaping of the ‘village green’ set on the marina has been completed and events have begun to take place at Pine Harbour – from yacht races and weddings to last year’s Christmas at the Marina.
This exercise was completed in 2009 and has been used as the basis for the formulation of the Pine Harbour Development Plan.
Future plans
A key part of bringing the Masterplan to life involves creating specific zoning that incorporates Pine Harbour’s Development Plan into the Council District Plan. The proposed amendments to the ‘Marina Zone’ would allow for the future ‘mixed use’ development of the 11.4 hectares of land set around the existing Marina. The plans include only land owned by Pine Harbour – the Council owned reserve land and boat ramp will not be part of the application.
The new zoning would introduce different ‘precincts’ and allow for a variety of activities and building scale. The timing for the implementation of the Pine Harbour Master Plan is dependant on both demands for residential and commercial space. However, it is expected that their development managed by Pine Harbour Holdings Limited will occur over a 20 year period and will be undertaken in a coordinated manner to allow for the continued operation of existing marine industry and marina related activities.
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